© Copyright Robert Vasvari, 1993-2005.

Licensing RBrowser

Before you can use RBrowser, you need to license the program. Licenses may be obtained from www.rbrowser.com. Once you have a license key, enter it into the License Registry Panel. Without a license, RBrowser functions as a free FTP client. In this case, the advanced functions (SFTP-SSH access, Folder sync) are disabled. RBrowser will detect licenses at startup only!

Click on the Help/License Registry menu to bring up the License Registry Panel:

License Search Directories:
When RBrowser starts up, it looks for licenses in the folders defined in this section. It must find one, otherwise only the basic FTP functionality will work. RBrowser supplies the defaults (~/Library/Licenses, /Local/Licenses) to search. For most users these will do just fine. For networked installations there may be licenses in other shared directories. Click on the "Add" button to add more folders to search. To restore the factory default search list, click "Reset".

If you want to define these directories as a global default for all of your users, you can edit the RBReadLicenseDirs entry in the GlobalPrefs.xml file in the app wrapper. Please refer to the Network installation section in Firewall Options Panel for instructions on how to edit this file.

Licenses in Use:
This section will show all users currently using RBrowser on the local LAN. Use this screen to see who is using the available licenses on your local network.

Found Licenses:
Shows all available valid licenses found by RBrowser by searching the folders listed above. One of these will be used to launch RBrowser.

Host Id:
The Host Id is unique for each computer. The Host Id is used for hostbound licenses. For full description of the different license types visit the Licensing Terms page.

License Key/Owner:
Once you have obtained a license from www.rbrowser.com, enter the key and the owner EXACTLY as they are given. Preferably, you should copy/paste to avoid misspelling errors. After entering the correct strings in both fields, click "Set". If the license is accepted, it will appear in the Found Licenses section.

How does it work?

Finding Licenses: In order to run, RBrowser has to find a valid license. Licenses are stored in files in certain folders. By default, the app wrapper (RBrowser.app), ~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser and /Licenses/RBrowser are searched. To add folders to this list click "Add" in the top section of the Registry Panel. Upon startup, RBrowser will scan these folders (defined in the RBReadLicenseDirs default), and pick the highest level valid license it can find. Expired or otherwise invalid licenses will be ignored. So, if you have a Basic and a Professional license both accessible, RBrowser try to use the Professional one. If it turns out that this license is already used on the same network, RBrowser will go down the list of valid licenses until it finds one it can use, or you will get an error panel informing you of the license situation.

License Limit Exceeded: Each license has a serial number that identifies it (the # field in the tables). The same license cannot be used on more hosts at the same time. The license server keeps track of how many users use which licenses. If you get the License Limit Exceeded error as you start up RBrowser, that means you need more licenses... Or just quit one copy. Another one can then be launched on the same LAN.

Saving Licenses: When you enter the license string into the Registry Panel and click "Enter License," RBrowser will check to see if the license is valid. If so, it will ask you where to save the license file. There are different ways of saving this license file depending on whether or not you want to make the license available for others. By default, RBrowser will save the license in
<YOUR_HOME>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser. In this case, this will be your personal license, since no other user can see it. To make the license available for others you have two choices:

1. Shared: In this case RBrowser will attempt to save the license in /Library/Licenses/RBrowser. You have to be the administrative user to do this, otherwise you are not permitted to write into /Library. Once the license is saved, all users on this host will be able to use the license.
2. Custom: In case of network installations there is usually a shared folder on a server. Selecting the "Custom" option allows you to save the license into such a folder, and by doing so, making the license available to all users on the local LAN. If the license is in a custom folder, make sure this folder is added to the list of folders searched by RBrowser for licenses (click "Add" in the top section of the Registry Panel).

Please note: Once the license is saved the license file cannot be moved or copied! Doing so will invalidate this file, and the license key will have to be entered again. You must use RBrowser to save the license where you want by the options described above. This is to make sure unauthorized persons cannot steal a license.

It is imperative that you hold onto the original license key and the e-mail that was sent to you. If you perform a "clean" system installation, move your home folder from one drive to another, restore from backup, etc. you will need to re-enter the license information.

Network Installation:

The next thing is to make sure the copies of RBrowser that are started on the client machines will know where to look for the license. You can tell each client where the license is (read RBReadLicenseDirs above) but that is very tedious when you have a lot of clients. It is simpler to simply change the global default value of RBReadLicenseDirs that is stored inside the installed copy of RBrowser on the server.

Here is how: inside RBrowser.app there is Contents/Resources/GlobalDefaults.xml. Using your favourite text(or xml) editor open this file for editing. Be sure to keep a backup copy just in case you mess it up. Look for the RBReadLicenseDirs section:
<key>RBReadLicenseDirs</key>
<array>
<string>~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
</array>
Add another line to it which contains the license directory path as seen FROM THE CLIENT:
<key>RBReadLicenseDirs</key>
<array>
<string>~/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
<string>/Local/Library/Licenses/RBrowser</string>
</array>
Save and you are done. Be VERY CAREFUL! If you mess up the xml format, RBrowser will not be able to read this file.